| Unschooling Families: The Website | |
About HomeschoolingEducators realize that small class size, hands-on learning opportunities, proceeding at the learner's pace and, above all, parental involvement make for better learning situations. Ideal situations add a lot of field trips, flexibility, the ability to use the student's learning style to their advantage and concentration on the question "how does learning best occur?" For many of us, this sounds like a description of homeschooling. People homeschool for a variety of reasons. There are families who travel or live overseas. Some think there is too much or too little religion in the public schools. Some live too far out for even school buses to reach them. Still others think that learning and education are two separate activities. Large families, families with an only child, single parents, gay parents or straight, the rich, the poor, the professors and the high school drop-outs, atheists and fundamentalists, capitalists and socialists --- the only things that homeschoolers have in common is a particularly strong (but varying) view of the importance of their families and a commitment to that oldest form of education - learning at home. Where did you learn your most important lessons? Chances are that it did not happen in school, but in life. Early on, these lessons came from our parents. Do not the most important lessons your children learn come from you, not any institution. Everyone of us homeschools, it is just that some of us choose to do so full-time. Homeschooling is but another choice with public and private education. By our exercising that right, we preserve it should you ever want or need to use it. The responsibility to have children is a considered one. Homeschooling parents find that first smile, that first step, that first word read and that first solved equation are all our own joys, not joys given to someone else. Family time is not merely the time left over after soccer, dance class, school and work, committee meetings, etc. It is of prime importance. Approximately one to two percent of the school-aged population is currently educated through homeschools. Often mistakenly characterized as an activity taken up by granola crunchers or Bible thumpers (an odd coalition), home-based education programs have become an ever more mainstream alternative education choice. Most families belong to one of the over 5000 support groups of all flavors across the country. Children join together to put on plays, take swimming lessons, play sports or learn about a special topic. And unlike the age and sex segregation found in conventional schools, they have close friends of both sexes and many ages. The laws regarding homeschooling vary from state to state and are always changing. Basically, it is legal. Some localities require curriculum plans filed with school boards and overseen by certified teachers. Others may only require an attendance sheet. Alaska provides home schools with materials and California has an option of assistance from the local school district; but in most states you are on your own. Some states require testing or external evaluations. Children who re-enter traditional schools have been doing quite well. Curricula: Many of us develop our own materials using trade books from the library. There are all the texts any conventional school may choose from, and there are correspondence or umbrella schools with a secular viewpoint. Those curricula that have been written for homeschools have been for where standard school materials did not fit some people's religious beliefs. Suppliers and catalogs of all philosophies are available. Some families choose to go with services which assist, oversee, help plan and keep records. Others might purchase a complete curriculum from a single source or pieces that suit their needs from a variety of places. Still others design their own course of study and use the resources of their local libraries and the larger community. Last Modified: October 2007 |
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